crafting101

I should have thought of this on day one, didn’t come across it until now! If you haven’t already visited their website from a previous post, do so now! It’ll help you get through the month of November in planning and getting all your gifts done.

www.aboutchristmascrafts.com looks like it’s a great resource for everything Christmas, I suggest you bookmark it! The page that I came across today was about planning out your Christmas gifts. I thought they had some great ideas. I’m going to list the bullet points, but feel free to check out her entire list.

1. Decide on a purpose.

2. Consider your resources.

3. Start collecting ideas.

4. Come up with a rough schedule.

They seem like simple ideas, but with a little planning, you’ll have everything written down so you’ll know what’s going on. I do that every year so I know how long it’s going to take for different things. I’m pretty sure I’m going to make the glue stars from another post for my Christmas cards. It’ll be different for everyone! So get your list written and get cracking if you haven’t already! Christmas will be here before you know it!

…someone wrote into a website requesting more information regarding making homemade Christmas gifts for under ten dollars. Well, did they ever get some answers! Honestly, I lost count as to how many they received! But they did have some awesome ideas and here are a few I want to share with you.

Homemade Bath Salts

I picked this up during my semester of student teaching. The teacher I was with helped her class make bath salts for their mothers/grandmothers for Christmas. She gave each student a baggy, about 2 cups of Epsom salt, a drop or two of potpourri oil, and a drop of food coloring. The student squished and mixed up the contents of the bag for a minute or two, then she tied the baggies off with a scrap of pretty ribbon and presto! A pretty gift of bath salts! My own children are making them this year at home for their grandmothers and teachers, and we found beautifully colored, unusually shaped glass containers with corks for under a dollar each. And they’re so proud of their work!

Cup Candle Holder

• Need:
• clear plastic cups (8 oz…)
• white glue
• tissue paper
• small candle

Purchase clear plastic cups (8 oz.). In a small margarine tub pour white glue and dilute with water. Tear red and green tissue paper into small pieces. With a paintbrush let children paint the glue mixture onto the outside of the plastic cup then put tissue pieces on top of glue. Have them cover the entire cup. Let dry. Now a tea light candle can be placed inside and when lit shows the Christmas colors beautifully.

And this is my favorite…

A Priceless Gift

The best inexpensive Christmas gift I ever received was from my son when he was in Kindergarten. The class took empty boxes (hair color, toothpaste, whatever) and wrapped them in wrapping paper and tied them with a ribbon. Attached to the box was this note

“I took an ordinary box
As empty as can be
I filled it with a special gift
And wrapped it carefully
But please don’t ever open it
Just leave the ribbon tied
And hold it tightly near your heart
Because my love for you’s inside!”

You could also change the ribbon line to read “just leave the bow applied” if you use bows instead of ribbon. This of course is easier than the ribbon for little ones. I loved this gift and will keep it FOREVER.)

These are three of the ideas that the Thrifty Fun website has to offer. Remember when I mentioned making the jars with the recipes in them? Well, they had an entire list of so many different kinds of recipes you can put into different size jars. So you can make a different one for each person depending on what they like. Their website also had a whole bunch of food gifts as well to choose from that hardly cost anything. Theya re also sort of crafty too!

Spend some time looking at their website and then if you have an idea, post it there and on here as a comment so we can share it with the world. TTFN!

If you’ve read any of my posts or followed my blog in the past, I love making something small and unique to give at Christmas time, usually something I can stick in the Christmas card. Well, here’s something that I can do! They are star ornaments, but they are made with glue! Check out http://www.aboutchristmascrafts.com where they give easy to follow instructions on making these ornaments with glue, glitter and any other fun items you can find. They seem to be a project that can be done in a metter of an hour, but the drying time does take a few days so be prepared!

Now if you like to crochet, there are lots of books available for you to purchase or borrow from the library for crocheting stars of  all sizes for your friends and family. I can’t remember the name of the one I have, but it has 99 different patterns so I can make it to where none of the ornaments I make for the tree are the same. That’s when it’s fun because I like variety and hate boredom!

So I hope these give you a few more ideas to add to all the others. If you’re like me, I’d better get busy! TTFN!

I know that in my house, I have loads of scraps lying around. Most of the time, I’m saving just tidbits because I know that one day I will use them. Today’s homemade Christmas gift is actually two, homemade bath crayons and homemade rag dolls.

These are two items that there are no two alike. They are both pretty simple to make too. I located them on http://www.essortment.com where they had lots of unique Christmas gifts to choose from, but these are two that I haven’t mentioned yet this month. The fun thing about the bath crayons is you can use scraps ofold bars of soap that are too tiny to use anymore, grate them up and add some water, making them like playdough. Add some food coloring and shape them into crayons and they are done once they dry! One alternate idea is to do the same thing withbroken crayons. Save them up, take the paper off them and put them in the oven to melt and dry into different shaped crayons. Cool, huh?

The rag doll is simple is you can sew simple seams. You just lay out the fabric in the way you want it and sew the pieces together, then cut out the shape and sew it up! It’s extremely simple. I think I’m going to make these for the kids this year. I have loads of fabric lying around. One way to change this up is to make animal shapes or regular shapes like circles, stars, or squares. I’ve made bears (see the picture of the one I’ve made before for the blog) and I plan on making some turtles for a friend of mine. It’s fun to be creative!

Show me your creativity! Share your ideas! I’d love to hear from you!

I’m always looking for things that my kids can make either with me or by themselves. I found this website called Amazingmoms.com (I think I’ve mentioned them before) and they have some neat ideas for kids over nine years old. You can check out their website here.

The ones that I like are personalized key chains,  painted terra cotta pots, making a music CD for your sibling,  and a personalized clock.  I know that I have a painted pot from Deanna (it was for Mother’s Day, but could have been for Christmas)  and I love looking at that pot everyday with my plant in it.

Another good idea is to get a kitchen or bathroom tile and  put your child’s handprint on it with paint. Those are pretty special.  There are lots of ideas, just have to use your imagination. I know I have to a lot!

I was looking around for some more ideas and found a website that had 101 Great Gifts to Make - all Christmas gifts! I could not believe the list! There were so many things that I would never have thought of! One mentioned was making a family tree on a sweatshirt for a grandparent. You can change up the idea and put handprints of all the grandkids on teh sweatshirt. I know my MIL would love that! Something I saw for the kids is a handprint towel. My kids have some washcloths personalized for them, they would love to put their handprint on a towel. One other good idea I saw was a scrapbook. This one was for teacher’s, but it could be adapted for mom’s, dad’s or grandparents. Take some photos, place them in the scrapbook, put some memories about the person and give it to them. That’ll be really special.

Check out their website, they have a ton of more ideas with links to even more ideas. Whew! There’s just too many to post here! Have fun!

Now, not everyone that would expect to receive a homemade Christmas gift is a likely recipient.  Sometimes the person who you wouldn’t expect to like something homemade just might be the person who would love it! That’s what today’s post is about.

J.P. Whickson wrote a neat article about gold-wrapped gifts and some neat gifts for hunters. Who would have thought that a hunter would want something homemade? Ever thought about making them homemade beef jerky? What about a camouflaged stocking? I have never seen one, but I know that I can get some camouflaged material and some khaki material and sew it up. I haven’t ever tried to make beef jerky, but if you have the means, then it can be done!

One other thing he mentioned was making your own gold-wraped chocolate candy. Who doesn’t like candy and who doesn’t like gold? I remember when my children were in kindergarten, they had the lephrecan come leave gold coins in their baskets. They loved it! I know that people would so love this! Try it!

Have you made anything yet? I’d love to know. Please send me photos so I can share!

Everyone loves to have their rooms smelling great all year long. I know I do. Not everyone wants to keep cnadles burning, but here’s one way that you can make everyone’s rooms smell awesome and they’re great Christmas gifts too!

I found this idea at http://www.santaspostbag.co.uk. It’s for a potpourri bag that you can hang on a doorknob or put in a drawer. It’s s simple project, you can get a huge bag of potpourri at the dollar store and you purchase some lacy fabric that you might use for curtains at a fabric store. Get some leftover ribbon and sew them up!

These are great for drawers, makes everything smell so good! I have gotten these as gifts, now it’s time to make some for others. Too many things to decide what to do!

Kind of an oxymoron for the title of this post, agree? This post is for those who love to bake and those who love to recycle. They can come together great this Christmas. This is something I will definitely do because I love baking cookies and I love to recycle!

Everyone knows that Christmas is about cookies. Doesn’t matter what kind, every family has some sort of cookie recipe that’s been passed down through the generations and baked in every relative’s home for decades. Well, now I’ve found a great way to share your wonderfully baked cookies with everyone.

I found the idea at buzzle.com. They suggested that you take several Pringles cans, wash them out and decorate them in pretty Christmas wrapping paper and bows, then place your cookies into the can and put the lid on them and pass them out. What a cool idea! We eat Pringles like they were going out of style, so this is a great idea that we can do for our friends. We make chocolate chip cookies and then every year I try out a new recipe for our church’s Christmas cookie exchange. It’ll be fun to make these!

LMK what you think, if you make one, I want to see them! I will definitely be making these and I think I can do them all in one day. Now I just have to get the Pringles cans. Can you actually believe that I don’t have any right now? The DH is gonna love me for this! TTYL!

So everyone likes personalized gifts, whether they are for Christmas or any holiday. In my searches for today, I found a great website that’s all about frugal living with many ideas for making awesome gifts that you can get cheap, but even though you can get them cheap, you can make them look expensive by personalizing them.

Check out this website for the complete list of all their ideas.  They have 63! All their ideas are less than $10 which for me, the mother of four, that’s a good price when it comes to buying gifts for all the relatives. Here are my personal five favorite ideas from their list and how you can make them personalized and specific to the person you are making them for.

1. Child’s artwork, framed - All grandparents love getting something that the kids have made themselves. I suggest framing some of their artwork from school (they bring home tons!) and purchase a cheap frame that the kids can paint and then put their artwork in it. Also, you can use clear drying glue to take napkins or paper and glue it to the frame to decorate it.
2. Home baked bread, include recipe - Not only can youbake the bread and include the recipe, give the person the bread in a crocheted loaf pan tote. I did this last year and it was a hit!
3. Decorative napkins and napkin rings - You can easily sew napkins for someone and since you probably know what they like and dislike and know their color preferences, these could be made in an afternoon.
4. Board games - These can be fun! There are multiple patterns out there for crocheting or knitting your own checkerboard or tic-tac-toe board. I have seen patterns in the web for many different types so have fun finding the one that fits you.
   
5. Favorite quote embroidered on a nice handkerchief - I have done these for my dad in the past. He loves Whataburger done in Texas so one year I remember cross-stitching a hamburger on his handkerchiefs. It only takes an afternoon and it’s fun. You can either cross-stitch like I did which takes a few more supplies than most want to work with or you can embroider where you do your own thing.
   

So these are my favorites. In fact, I’ve gotten some of my own ideas of what I want to do for Christmas. Share with me your thoughts! See you later!